Tomatoes love the sun and warmth, but is it possible to grow them in a garden surrounded by forest or a shaded area? Choosing the right time, variety, and care makes it possible to grow them even in a garden with minimal sun.

My garden, over the past 20 years, has become a forest garden. Right now, we’re surrounded by tall decade-old trees, and sun hours during the day are minimal. From once great tomato conditions, with the tree growth and climate changes, we are now an area where tomatoes are quite difficult to grow. But, it’s still possible. We just had to modify our methods.

Choosing the right variety

I already wrote about this topic a year ago when I wrote about some general information that can be used in most gardens. But, when we’re talking about a forest garden and varieties things are a bit different here. Lack of sun usually means less ripe time and a shorter growing season. My season has shortened drastically over the years. Before I could harvest perfectly healthy late tomatoes even during October and even November, provided that there was no frost. Now my season ends around the end of September with the first intense morning dew. The lack of sun hours prevents the soil and plants from drying, and due to them constantly being moist from the dew and fog the blight starts completely killing them. By the beginning of October, all my plants are completely black.

Another issue we’re having lately due to the excessive moisture and lack of sun is the invasion of stink bugs. In the early autumn, the young ones start sucking on the fruits and turning them brown. The fruit affected by the stink bugs can’t be preserved or left to ripe in the house so the fruit is 100% unusable.

For this reason, I can recommend that the best tomatoes for forest gardens are varieties with smaller fruits and the ones with short growth seasons. Short-season tomatoes are an excellent option for forest gardens because they will come much sooner than tomatoes that have a long growth period. The ones with a period over 80 days are very likely to never ripe and stay completely green. Also, with short-growth varieties, there’s a good chance of having a second harvest. Especially in areas with a warm summer.

The same thing is true with smaller fruits. Smaller fruits ripe faster, they can ripe indoors or on the balcony without any problem, and they can still be delicious. Big fruits, although excellent for cooking, are very likely to never ripe outside of the garden. No matter if you choose cherry varieties, round tomatoes, or peach-sized ones I can recommend choosing the ones that take up to 70 days. Of course, this doesn’t mean that I don’t have late-season tomatoes in my garden, I still grow them, but only a couple of seedlings a year. If we have a perfect tomato season I can have a harvest of bigger tomatoes with two early-season harvests, but if not I will have a good early-season harvest.

Choosing the right place

Tomatoes can be grown in a shaded garden, but they will still need a decent amount of sun hours. Tomatoes that don’t get enough sun can be very sour. This isn’t a problem with cherry varieties that have a very sweet taste, but other varieties can become almost inedible fresh.

Although everyone says that tomatoes shouldn’t be grown in the same spot two years in a row, or the same spot as eggplants or peppers I honestly can’t say that I’ve noticed any difference in quality or quantity. A good amount of fertilizers solves the problem with the same spot growing. Forest gardens can be very limiting in area choosing, so if you have one perfect spot don’t hesitate to use it every single year.

When to transplant in a forest garden

Due to the lack of sun tomatoes in a forest garden can take longer to ripe, which means they will need more growth time. This is why it is important to transplant them as soon as possible. Usually, the perfect transplant time for tomatoes is after the last frost date, but in a forest garden, we need to take in mind the soil temperature. Sometimes the soil can be too cold even after the last frost date. Tomatoes like the soil to be 15-21°C(60-70°F), so temperatures under 15°C could stop the growth, and plants will basically hibernate until the temperatures rise. The soil temperature can be checked with a thermometer or using a simple method by walking barefoot. If the soil is not too cold for walking it will be good for tomatoes.

Still, we shouldn’t wait too long for transplanting either. We should aim to avoid too much warmth during flowering. Tomatoes can start dropping flowers in temperatures reach 35°C(95°F), so we need to make sure that the plant already has fruits before the temperatures start rising. This can be avoided by planting early enough and sowing early enough. My garden is fairly cold until May, 15th. We haven’t had any frost after May 1st in decades, but the garden is still too cold to transplant earlier. Some years I do a transplant in the period between May 1st and 15th, but usually, I wait. To avoid too hot weather, which here begins around the first few days of June, I usually sow my seedlings earlier than recommended. Before, when I didn’t have a warm enough area for them, I used to start sowing around the beginning of February. Now, when we have a fireplace and temperatures inside are almost summer-like, I start tomatoes around the end of February. I want to make sure my tomatoes are ready for flowering as soon as I transplant them.

Forest garden tomatoes and too much sun

Although, when you mention a forest garden you immediately think of a shaded garden, even a forest garden can sometimes be too sunny for tomatoes. Especially with the increase in summer temperatures. The lack of sun hours can lead to a different problem: sunburned tomatoes. When tomatoes are constantly in the sun they gradually start getting accustomed to sun rays. But, when the tomatoes are shaded most of the day and only get very strong noon /afternoon sun the intense heat can be too much for them. They start getting white spots aka. sunscalds. This can be avoided with the right pruning. Usually, it’s recommended to remove as many leaves from the tomatoes as possible. This can significantly help to prevent blight issues. But, it can also expose the fruits to too much sun. This is why I usually don’t prune any leaves above the fruits. I prune every single leaf under the first fruits but leave the bush intact above the fruits. This way they will be protected from the sun. The leaf control is also great when there is a lack of sun. At the beginning of autumn when I need a quick ripe I remove every single leaf and leave the fruits completely exposed.

Another great way to protect the fruits against too much sun is using hail protection netting. Most netting today provides some minimal shading or at least redirects the sun minimally and this can be enough during very hot days. Since we’ve been using netting in our garden I can say that I haven’t had sun-damaged fruits. Tomatoes and even blackberries, which are very prone to sunscald, are completely healthy now.

What about the wind?

Wind in a forest garden can be one of the things you won’t need to worry much about. Due to the lots of trees, the tomatoes could be fairly protected from the winds. In our garden, the tomatoes are completely protected from all directions except from north winds. But, we deal with this just with normal pole tying or wire tying. Another method we use is always planting two tomato seedlings together. This way they support each other and are more wind resistant than a single seedling. Past couple of years we had a lot of damaging storms, last year’s hurricane-level winds even knocked down parts of the netting, but the tomatoes were intact.

Forest garden can be challenging, but if we learn its disadvantages we can learn to make them work in our favor and grow healthy tomatoes.